Evidently, the Papua Issue is Very Urgent for the Jokowi Government

During the administration of President Habibie, Timor-Leste was likened to “a pebble inside the shoes”. The same thing could happen to Papua. If not handled seriously, the fate of Papua can be like East Timor.

So the first day after being inaugurated, the Working Cabinet on Politics, Law and Security held a coordination meeting. One of the important agenda discussed in the inaugural coordination meeting was the issue of Papuan development and the existence of separatist movements in the region. This problem is raised by three ministries at the same time under the Coordinating Ministry for Politics, Law and Security. The Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported on the development in Papua and the problems that must be resolved, while the National Police and the TNI raise the issue of separatism.

Separatism Movement is not an Impact

Maybe many parties still think that the separatist movement in Papua is the impact of the slow development in Papua. But as time goes by, what is assumed to be the ‘an impact’, actually is more appropriate to be called ‘the inhibiting factor of development’. History proves that separatism was deliberately planted and watered, and developed by the colonial nation in their classic strategy, namely “divide et impera” (literally means “divide and rule”, in politics and sociology is gaining and maintaining power by breaking up larger concentrations of power into pieces that individually have less power than the one implementing the strategy).

If it is true that the existence of the separatist movement is an impact, then logically with a touch of development that is so intense in various aspects of life, separatism will fade by itself. But in fact, separatism in Papua seems to be directly proportional to the incessant development. That is, the more vigorous development is carried out, the more aggressive the demands of the separatists to separate themselves from the Republic of Indonesia.

Just look at the number of shootings and attacks against security forces by armed Free Papua Organization in the past four years, they continue to increase. Likewise, this is also happened to the demands of the referendum that were carried out in various ways and increasingly intense to the international world. Even two Prime Ministers from Vanuatu (Kalosil Moana Carcasses and successor Joe Natuman) have voiced the demands of independent Papua all this year in the UN General Assembly Session. Not to mention other institutions at the regional level that are also aggressively supporting the independent Papua movement, such as the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG), the Parliamentarian Caucus for West Papua (IPWP), the International Human Rights Commission (IHRC) in Asia, and many others .

This means that the separatist movement in Papua is no longer solely carried out by Papuans whose ideas are still at odds, but has become a joint agenda involving a number of interest from groups abroad. So that law enforcement against perpetrators of treason in Papua must also be accompanied by “taming” foreign actors.

These facts are very important to be a record of the Jokowi-JK Working Cabinet, especially the ministry which directly deals with the Papuan issue. Because if you wrongly diagnose the problem, the solution is certainly not going to solve the problem. Hopefully.